We Finally Saw Baby Smoochie!

This week has been an exciting one for our little family of (almost) 5!


It started when Cecilia, my 5-year-old, had a brilliant, wonderfully organic "ah-ha!" moment. She was blowing raspberries on my belly to try and "tickle the baby" when her eyes lit up and she said, "Mom! I got a great idea! We can call the baby little baby Smoochie!"

I melted. YES! YES!! YES!!! I have been wanting to call this baby SOMETHING other than "the baby" while we wait to find out if we are having a bundle of pink or blue. But everything seemed either too cliche (ei: peanut, bean, etc...), I already used (dear daughter number two was called "nugget" for quite some time). So yeah. Baby smoochie. Chosen by the kid's big sis. It's perfect :)
 
Thing Two: WE PICKED FIRST NAMES!

I am almost terrified to admit this out loud because I notoriously outgrow names. But there are two names. One for a boy. One for a girl. We ALL like them. Scot gets overwhelmed by the name game so this time he asked me to hand my list over to the girls and only keep the names they both liked and then pass the finalists on to him. That's exactly what happened. The girls cut my list from 20 to 10 and Scot trimmed it down to 3. Among those three was my favorite from the original lot. To have a name all FOUR of us love is super exciting. I wouldn't say the names are a secret, per se, especially since I've already told a handful of people, but I want to give them a few more weeks so I know they'll stick before I make any big to-do about it. But seriously. WE PICKED FIRST NAMES!

Lastly: We finally got a glimpse of baby smoochie. I've never had an ultrasound so early before (I was 11 or 12 weeks with our first and 10 or 11 weeks with our second). This time was 8 weeks and 6 days. I have to admit, the difference was definitely noticeable! Besides being smaller, the baby was a lot less active than I remembered them being (but the ultrasound tech assured me that this early on that is perfectly normal). And hey, if this kid wants to be mellow, that is a-okay with me!

Here he (she?) is!

The heart rate was 173bpm (which, according to the old wives tale means GIRL)! And baby measured in at 2.75 centimeters.

Today marks 9 fabulous weeks! Rather than barrage you with all the pictures this week (and maybe because I forgot to take TWO pictures in ONE week... oops!) I figured I'll just leave you with today's baby bump picture:

And there you have it folks!

In other news... We are starting to get excited for Christmas around these parts. Much to my neighbors' dismay, I'm sure, we went ahead and hung our lights a little early this year:

 

These two love bugs are sooooo exciteable anymore between the baby and upcoming holidays (or maybe just because of their surplus of halloween candy). They can't contain it and I love that! They've been especially awesome the past week or so. They are both such well-behaved, happy, bright, beautiful souls. They make me even more excited to have this baby. I want to do this all over again :)

And with that big ol' pile of mush, I'm signing off.

Peace love and happy things,
T

The Symptoms...

Week 8! Our baby is now the size of a raspberry :)

While I have always been fortunate with mild morning sickness in all of my pregnancies (and this one is following in suit) - that doesn't mean I don't have symptoms.

Here are some of my symptoms and how I've been managing them:

Morning Sickness: It's here. I just don't find myself hugging the porcelain throne like many pregnant women do. Instead it's a tight-rope walk. One step toward being too hungry sends me spiraling into a world of nausea where I don't feel hungry, I just feel ill. One step towards being too full and I feel like a bloated, beached whale who is about to puke up Jonah himself. It's not pretty. However,  the antidote: I've been able to keep this mostly at bay by eating frequent, small snacks. Some of my favorite on-the-go snacks this pregnancy are: buttered cookies from the tin, greek yogurt (muller, the kind where you can dump caramelized almonds or berries in), and bagels with butter.

Itchy, dry legs: I typically get itchy, dry legs in the winter. But I've reached a whole different level of frenzied scratching lately. It's just my damn shins! It feel ssoooooo amazing to scratch, but when I look down I've nearly scrapped my skin raw.  The Antidote: Aquaphor! I discovered this stuff when Scarlett had eczema as a toddler and a friend recommended it. It's similar to Vaseline in consistency, although slightly thicker.  It's helping, although it hasn't solved the problem. I also remember my sister gifted me a Burt's Bees peppermint leg cream during on of my previous pregnancies that had a wonderful cooling effect. Might need to invest in more of that!

Bizarre Dreams: Like... REALLY vivid, REALLY strange dreams out of nowhere. The other night I had a dream that I pulled a maggot out of my eye lid. Yeah. No fucking thank you. The Antidote:  I really wish I knew!

Exhaustion: Extreme, spontaneous, unwarranted exhaustion. The kind that physically hurts. The kind that makes you momentarily contemplate death because at least you'd be laying down. It comes on randomly (sometimes just a few hours after I wake up), even after I full night sleep (I slept 9 hours last night... I was still tired for about 80 percent of my day). The Antidote: Naps. Lots of them. Also, they say you are allowed roughly 1-2 cups of coffee a day. I've been measuring out 10 ounces when I am really feeling the exhaustion, and I savor each and every drop. It's liquid gold.

Bloat: The moment food touches my lips, I look 5 months pregnant. I've been taking my daily bump pictures in the morning before I have anything to eat. If I took a picture in the evenings you would swear those photos were taken months apart, not hours apart. The Antidote: Suck it in, don't stuff yourself, and blame it on the baby belly. That's all I've got!

Acid Reflux: Nothing makes an already nauseous pregnant lady feel more nauseous than hot bile creeping up her throat. Gross. Thankfully this hasn't been too terrible yet, but it has caught me off guard a few times and I do remember it got progressively worse with my previous pregnancies. The Antidote: Tums. And avoid acidic food.

Cravings: So far my cravings have consisted of: lobster bisque, burritos, crab rangoons, tacos, 7 layer dip, WaWa's mac and cheese, rice and beans. Fair warning: This kid might pop out wearing a sombrero. The Antidote: Chipotle, Taco Bell, Tijuana Tacos, and of course, your local grocery store. This symptom really isn't so bad ;)

And finally...

Euphoria: Because life is seriously the coolest fucking thing. Everywhere I go I feel like I'm harboring this amazing secret. This precious, extraordinary cargo that is full of hope and the terrifying. wonderful unknown. And the best part is, this time, I get to do everything with my little sidekicks. As if the miracle of life wasn't incredible enough to the average adult, holy crap, you should see kids react to it. The girls are completely enamored. I've always felt we have a strong family unit and that my husband, the girls and I all work together beautifully and compliment one another so well. This experience is letting us all see that in action. I feel like we are all in this together. I cannot wait to see my babies hold our baby for the first time. The pride on their faces. The excitement in their eyes. The way they will be little cheerleaders for this little one's first steps, words, laughs. There is so much good happening.

I am a lucky lady. :)

And with that... I bid you aduei. Until next time.

xo,
T

It's Happening!!

Hey folks!

Despite what you may have thought, I did not forget about you! I did however realize that I shared this link with a couple of close friends and to suddenly stop updating it right around when I was supposed to find out if I was pregnant would be a dead-give away and I wanted the husband to be the first to know. 

Well, looky here:




First time was the charm, apparently! We got a positive OPK on September 14th and wasted no time! 9 days later I took a test that looked negative, but when I came back (after the alotted time frame) I thought I saw a veeery faint line. I took another test and the same thing happened. I was too impatient to wait for a truly conclusive test and told Scot that night. I tested with a first response the following day and got a faint positive, and the next day I took this digital. No denying that!

Because this will likely be our last pregnancy, I want to remember everything, and you, lucky little blog, get to be the beneficiary of my wealth of pregnancy information. 

One of the first things I vowed to do this time was to take belly pictures. TONS of them. One a day, in fact. And so far I have only missed one day. Not too shabby, considering it's been over a month! Now, this early on, you can see that the belly has been fluctuating. Which leads me to blame bloat not baby on the little belly in some of these photos. However, I am feeling a little thicker around the waist line, and this is baby number 3, so perhaps the baby bump is just around the corner.

In the future, I will share my baby bump pictures for the week on Wednesdays, when baby graduates to the next week of gestation. But here is what we have so far: 

Wow! My apologies for the lack of symmetry in those photographs. The photo adjustment tools are a little wonky on this thing. I'll get the hang of it eventually!

That will be all for now, but I will be reporting back again soon! 

xo, 
T

And We Have Lift Off!

I'm pretty sure my ovaries heard me whining yesterday and decided to get off their lazy butts and DO SOMETHING! Today's OPK definitely shows that I'm getting close to the big "O"! I almost didn't test today because yesterday's was so discouraging. I'm happy that I did! Perhaps I will be ovulating tomorrow: My BIRTHDAY! That'd be cool. Anyway, here she is:

I'll be back tomorrow with an update! 

My Lazy Ovaries

So, after much deliberation, I have decided that ovaries really have it made. First of all, there are two of them, so they have someone to share the work load with. Secondly, did you know you only actually ovulate for no more than a 24 hour period? It's true. That means the other 27 days of your cycle, your ovaries are just acting as two really ugly purses, just cradling your potential offspring's genetic code. The proof is in the pudding folks. Most of the times your ovaries are doing a whole lot of nothing!

Summoning my inner Chandler Bing here: Could these tests BE any more negative?

They sure as hell aren't changing much. That's okay. Ovia (my fertility tracker app) tells me that my fertile window begins tomorrow and peaks from August 21-23. Let's cross our fingers for some positive OPK's soon!

An Inconvenient Truth

Guys. I have for you today... An inconvenient truth. Can you guess what it is? It isn't about hail the size of golf balls. It isn't about monstrous tsunami's. It's not about climate change at all. In fact... Shit is about to get real here.

It's about...

Pee.

Any good TTCer (trying-to-concieve-er) knows the acronym FMU. It's not a weird(er) cousin to the bird called EMU. It's not a typo for "FU". It's First. Morning. Urine.

Early on in my pregnancy with my oldest daughter I was informed that when you take a pregnancy test with anything other than your first morning urine (the first time you pee after waking up), a thousand angel babies cry. No, not really. But supposedly it isn't as accurate to take a urine test mid-day as it is in the morning. The theory is that because you haven't been drinking all night, your urine is less diluted and will be more likely to pick up any baby-hormones lurking in your pee. Yum. I warned you it was getting real.

Well because I am an EXPERT at trying to get pregnant (which, you know, I still haven't actually tried to do. Ever.) I know better. FMU ShmeFMU. I can pee on any old stick whenever I want and it will be fiiiiine. I say this because I am a night shift worker and last night, I happened to work. Last night I also happened to drink copious portions of coffee in order to not become comatose. I figure, eh, how big of a difference can it make? It's better to take the test the same time every day than to wait until my urine is all dehydrated and whatnot.

However, by the looks of these tests, I am getting farther away from ovulation, not closer to it. So there you have it folks. Inconvenient? Yep. True? You betcha. The proof:

See you lovely folks tomorrow!

Another Day, Another Negative OPK

I imagine that this will be how it goes for quite a while. In fact, I was willing to bet yesterday's OPK was going to be negative since I'm still so early in my cycle, so I skipped it. Today I figured I would take one (even though I suspect they will continue to be negative through out the weekend. Should become positive the beginning of next week). I figured that it would at least be of interest to see if the line is getting darker. The answer is: YES! Maybe. Is that just the light?

Regardless, it's still negative. Also, I now know why TTC-ers say TTC is "stressful". I always thought this was a preposterous proclamation. I mean... You know what you have to do to get pregnant, right? Isn't there like, a million and one studies that verify having sex is among the top stress-leavers? Yes, yes it is. But peeing on a stick every.damn.day and scrutinizing just how negative it is, might still be enough to drive a person mad. And I've only done it twice. And I'm not even hoping to get pregnant this month. I mean!

Anyway, here is today's OPK:

And since I thought it would be fun to do a comparison, (my new idea of 'FUN' you guys), I decided to do a pic stitch. 

And there you have it. I think it's just the light. But it might look a little darker. Guys, do you think it looks a little darker!?!

This is my life now. Obsessing over pee sticks. The craziest part is: I can't wait to do it again tomorrow. 

Until then... Peace, Love and Happy Things 

And So It Begins

Hello there!

Theresa here, happily reporting for duty. The first blog post is always the most awkward, so let's be straight forward, shall we?

This is not my first blog, and I have come to terms with the fact that it will most likely not be my last. That's okay. This particular blog has a very special purpose: To log mine and Scot's journey to creating another human being. This is the first blog that I have created that is entirely for me and not at all anyone else.

I've been around the baby-makin' block before. Scot and I have two awesome daughters, Scarlett (7) and Cecilia (5). However, this is the first time in the history of our lives that we are intentionally trying to conceive. Let me tell you what: This is a whole different ball park. I would say that just -whoops!- finding out you are pregnant is infinitely easier than trying to get pregnant. The leg work has all been done for you. You pretty much just hunker down into acceptance that WOOHOO! We have another little person coming into the family.

But choosing to bring a person into this world? It's a hefty decision. One that we have not taken lightly and regularly get cold feet about. I mean, there's the obvious concerns like being financially ready, emotionally ready, considering how existing children will handle a new little one (most kids beg for dogs, my kids beg for babies). But there's even more to it than that. We are a nation that has only very recently left a decade-long war and still has its hands in some very risky business. I've even considered my carbon footprint and how Scot and I are two people who have produced two people and that doesn't seem so bad. But once we have produced three, our carbon foot print in the world will be much greater. This is the crazy shit I think about while falling asleep not falling asleep at night.

These things are all valid. Then there is also the fact that I'm in school and we are in the process of trying to rent our home out and move to another state. Yeah. So is the timing ideal? Nope. But will it ever be? Probably not. We have decided to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway. We certainly were no better suited to become parents when our daughters were born, but they have turned out marvelously.

I realize what a big deal this is. And so I want to track every little bit of this journey. Starting today.

I have never had any trouble getting pregnant, so I don't imagine this will be a "trying to conceive" blog for very long. However, since I am in school, Scot and I are working to get pregnant in a very confined window of time: September or October. This is because I tend to deliver a month early and getting pregnant in these months would set us up to have a baby sometime between May-July. This would be ideal as I won't be in school over the summer and can still go back part time in the fall. Because we are working toward this specific goal, I've decided to be proactive about conceiving. Today I am on cycle day 5 and took my very first OPK (ovulation predictor kit).

At first I was excited: TWO LINES! In the pregnancy test world that means "You are totally having a baby!" However, in the OPK world it means... Negative. Absolutely nothing. I am told, however, that the magical faint little line will get darker... and darker... and darker... Until it is finally darker than the bold line underneath the "C". THAT is when you want to get to the baby-making. So even though we aren't planning to try this month, I still want to see around when I ovulate in my cycle. Then next month... We will be ready!

I will be back tomorrow with another OPK update :)